The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys collected data on students’ performance in reading, mathematics and science, as well as contextual information on students’ background, home characteristics and school factors which could influence performance. This publication includes detailed information on how to analyse the PISA data, enabling researchers to both reproduce the initial results and to undertake further analyses. In addition to the inclusion of the necessary techniques, the manual also includes a detailed account of the PISA 2006 database. It also includes worked examples providing full syntax in SAS®.

PISA surveys use complex methodologies that condition the way data should be analysed. As this is not yet included in standard procedures included in the statistical software packages such as SAS® or SPSS®, this manual describes the methodologies in detail and also presents syntax and macros developed specially for analysing the PISA data.